"Want? You hint that I have come to ask you for money?"

"I shouldn't have thought it impossible. If you were in need--you spoke
of a third-class journey--I am, at all events, the natural person for
your thoughts to turn to."

Reuben laughed dispiritedly.

"No, no, Miriam; I haven't quite got to that. You are the very last
person I should think of in such a case."

"Why?"

"Simply because I am not quite so contemptible as you think me. I don't
quarrel with my sister, and come back after some years to make it up
just because I want to make a demand on her purse."

"You haven't accustomed me to credit you with high motives, Reuben."

"No. And I have never succeeded in making you understand me. I suppose
it's hopeless that you ever will. We are too different. You regard me
as a vulgar reprobate, who by some odd freak of nature happens to be
akin to you. I can picture so well what your imagination makes of me.
All the instances of debauchery and general blackguardism that the
commerce of life has forced upon your knowledge go towards completing
the ideal. It's a pity. I have always felt that you and I might have
been a great deal to each other if you had had a reasonable education.
I remember you as a child rebelling against the idiocies of your
training, before your brain and soul had utterly yielded; then you were
my sister, and even then, if it had been possible, I would have dragged
you away and saved you."

"I thank Heaven," said Miriam, "that my childhood was in other hands
than yours!"

"Yes; and it is very bitter to me to hear you say so."

Miriam kept silence, but looked at him less disdain fully.

"I suppose," he said, "the people you are staying with have much the
same horror of my name as you have."

"You speak as loosely as you think. The Spences can scarcely respect
you."

"You purpose remaining with them all the winter?"

"It is quite uncertain. With what intentions have you come here? Do you
wish me to speak of you to the Spences or not?"

He still kept looking about the room. Perhaps upon him too the baleful
southern wind was exercising its influence, for he sat listlessly when
he was not speaking, and had a weary look.

"You may speak of me or not, as you like. I don't see that anything's
to be gained by my meeting them; but I'll do just as you please."

"You mean to stay in Naples?"

"A short time. I've never been here before, and, as I said, I may as
well be here as anywhere else